Building a startup from scratch feels like bolting wings to an engine while already in the air. From the ground it looks daring; inside the cockpit it’s mostly duct tape, caffeine, and stack traces.
Day 0 – The Spark
My story began with a nagging problem: small creative agencies drowning in admin work. I drafted a one-page sketch for software that could automate proposals and hand-offs. At 2 a.m. I bought a domain and told myself I’d “validate fast.” Spoiler: nothing about the next year was fast.
Month 1 – Validation Is Awkward
Validation means begging strangers to poke holes in your idea. I booked twenty Zoom calls; eleven ghosted, five loved the concept but “weren’t ready,” and four grilled me until my pitch finally made sense. Those four became beta users. Ego scarred, vision sharper.
Month 3 – Code, Coffee, Chaos
I’m a designer by trade, not a 10 × engineer. I learned TypeScript the same week I set up Stripe. I shipped an MVP held together by TODO comments and prayer. Deploying at 4 a.m., I’d refresh the dashboard with my eyes half-closed, convinced any click would throw a 500 error.
Month 6 – First Dollar
A boutique agency in Brazil paid $29 for a year. After Stripe fees and hosting, I still lost money, but psychologically everything changed: a stranger valued my work. I screenshotted the receipt and set it as my phone wallpaper.
Month 8 – The Great Refactor
Growth meant rewriting the code that barely worked. During a “quick” migration I emailed 300 users a duplicate invoice—twice. Sunday was apologies; Monday was adding “Are you sure?” modals everywhere.
Month 10 – Investor Speed-Dating
Pitching VCs is like speed-dating where charisma is measured in TAM slides. One partner asked why I wasn’t at $100 K ARR; I explained I was still fixing the undo button. He didn’t laugh. No check.
Month 12 – First Hire
Support tickets, marketing, and coding burned me out. I hired Alex, a part-time developer eight time zones away who wrote cleaner code in one commit than I had in six months. For the first time I slept through the night.
Year 2 – The Plateau
Revenue hit $4 K MRR, then stalled. Churn rose, a competitor launched a free tier, and my motivation tanked. I interviewed forty churned users, learned they needed team roles, and spent three months building them. Growth resumed—not a hockey stick, more a steady incline. Steady pays rent.
Balancing Life on a Knife-Edge
Friends think startup life is glamorous; they see flexible hours and latte photos. They don’t see the 14-hour days or me muting birthday group chats to fix a production bug. Relationships need maintenance just like servers. Now I block out “non-negotiable downtime” every Friday night—phone off, brain off, pizza on the couch. Without it, burnout knocks quickly and drags creativity with it.
Financing the Dream
I bootstrapped with savings, freelanced on weekends, and put expenses on a low-interest credit card I pray stays low-interest. Venture money would be nice, but independence lets me build the product users want, not the one a board demands. It’s scarier and slower, but the trade-off is waking up excited instead of obligated.
The Mental Marathon
Imposter syndrome screams louder than Slack pings. Some days meditation helps; other days it’s chips and late-night doomscrolling. I’ve learned the founder’s mental battery is the company’s single point of failure.
Five Lessons So Far
- Celebrate micro-wins. Momentum is built from tiny dopamine hits.
- Ship ugly, iterate often. Perfect launches never launch.
- Talk to users when it hurts. Pain points are product maps.
- Protect energy. Your calendar and your sleep are strategic assets.
- Define success as staying alive and learning faster than you burn cash.
Today and Tomorrow
We’re at $9 K MRR—ramen-profitable if I brew coffee at home. Alex is full-time; I finally pay myself a modest salary. An AI feature that drafts client proposals is in beta. Will it 10× growth or break everything? Probably both.
That’s the deal: perpetual uncertainty in exchange for the chance to create something meaningful. Some mornings I feel like I’m soaring; others I’m just tightening bolts mid-flight. Either way, the plane is still airborne—and for now, that’s exactly where I want to be.
